Tagged: sdr#

SoftRock Lite II Build and Test Tutorial Video

The SoftRock Lite II is a (now fairly old) soundcard based software defined radio kitset that is capable of receiving on the HF bands. Over on YouTube user w2aew has uploaded a video showing the entire kitset build process for the SoftRock Lite II SDR radio. He also goes over the circuit blocks explaining their function and how they work.

This is an excellent video if you are interested in learning more about the components and circuits used in some SDRs.

#148: Software Defined Radio kit | Tutorial | Build | Test | Softrock Lite II

SeeDeR: New SDR GUI Software Supporting RTL-SDR

SeeDeR is a new software defined radio GUI program that supports the RTL-SDR. It also supports the Funcube Dongle and BladeRF. Currently it is in an early beta release.

SeeDeR contains features specifically developed for decoding radio data transmissions from satellites – in particular the crowdfunded SkyCube satellite – such as a built-in AX.25 decoder, and a satellite pass predictor.

SeeDeR requires a PC with Windows 7+, 1+ GB RAM, 2+ GHz dual-core CPU, 20 MB HD space. The executable is 32-bit.

We need to note that SeeDeR has been a cause of some friction with the author (Youssef) of SDR# and may be part of the reason why SDR# was temporarily removed. Youssef is claiming that SeeDer has illegally used licenced code from SDR#, however the author of SeeDer refutes that claim.

SeeDeR Software Defined Radio GUI
SeeDeR Software Defined Radio GUI

SDR# Website and Downloads Removed

Update: The author has updated the website with an explanation of why he took it down. He has also restored download functionality so now sdr-install.bat will work again.

The SDR# website, download links and repositories have been taken down and probably won’t be back for a number of days or weeks. This means the sdr-install.bat file will not work as well. If you already have SDR# installed it will continue to work as normal.

We aren’t exactly sure why this has happened, but it seems the author of SDR# did not like the many forks of the software that have been recently popping up. The forks may have been violating the licence that SDR# is under.

If you are new to RTL-SDR, our Quickstart guide has guides to using HDSDR and SDR-CONSOLE to try while SDR# is unavailable. HDSDR and SDR-CONSOLE are two good alternatives to SDR# but are slightly more difficult to set up and use.

See the Reddit discussion on this here.

Two new SDR# Plugins

Last month two new SDR# plugins where released on rtl-sdr.ru. The first is TimeShift SDR. This plugin creates a buffer which allows you to listen to any signal at any point in time on the waterfall within the buffer time. It is very useful for catching signals that you might have otherwise missed by being too slow to click on them. Update: Turns out Timeshift SDR isn’t exactly new. But it has recently been updated to work on the latest SDR# releases.

Timeshift SDR# Plugin
Timeshift SDR# Plugin

The second plugin is a Digital Audio Processor which adds in a squelch slider bar, an audio inverter, an audio band-pass filter and a de-emphasis filter.

digital_audio_processor_sdrsharp_plugin
Digital Audio Processor Plugin

SDR# Now with Noise Blanker

The latest version of SDR# has now been updated to include a noise blanker plugin. A noise blanker can reduce impulsive noises like those created by spark gaps and electric motors. Other SDR programs like Linrad and HDSDR have had noise blanker functions for a while so this is a welcome addition to SDR#. Below is a comparison of the noise blanker turned on and off on a noisy CW signal.

To update SDR# to the latest version simply run install.bat again. Take note that updating will remove any plugins you have added to the SDRSharp.exe.Config file so you may wish to save it first.

Noise Blanker Off

[audio https://www.rtl-sdr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/nb_off.mp3]

Noise Blanker On

[audio https://www.rtl-sdr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/nb_on.mp3]

SDR# now with IF Stage Noise Reduction Algorithm

SDR# has recently been updated to include an IF stage digital noise reduction algorithm. Previously digital noise reduction could be done at the audio output stage, but now it can be done to the IF signal as well. Performing digital noise reduction on the IF stage appears to work much better than at the audio stage. Update SDR# by running the install.bat file again.

Here are some comparison audio files tested on a noisy NFM voice signal for listening.

Original Signal

[audio https://www.rtl-sdr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/IF_NR_OFF.mp3]

IF Noise Reduction (set to -12 dB)

[audio https://www.rtl-sdr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/IF_NR.mp3]

Audio Noise Reduction (set to -80 dB)

[audio https://www.rtl-sdr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AF_NR.mp3]
sdrsharp_if_nr
SDR# IF Digital Noise Reduction Plugin

Installing SDR# on OSX

SDR# is the most commonly used Software Defined Radio receiver GUI that is used with the RTL-SDR. Natively, it runs on Windows, but since it is written in C#, it can also run on Mac OSX and Linux with Mono. Installing SDR# on OSX using Mono is a little more complicated compared to simply running it on Windows however.

To help with this, Jan Szumiec has written a simple guide on installing SDR# using Mono on OSX. The guide includes the steps of installing Mono, the Xamarin Studio Mono IDE, the rtl-sdr libraries and then compiling the SDR Sharp sources and symlinking the Mono runtime to the native libraries.

Update: This is no longer possible as the SDR# code is not available anymore.

SDR Sharp on OSX
SDR Sharp on OSX